Vimy Ridge Essay

In Canadian historiography, the Battle of Vimy Ridge has often been portrayed as the day “we became a full fledged nation with an army of our own.” The problem with this statement, and any narrative that sees Canada evolving from a colony to a nation on the top of Vimy Ridge is that it misrepresents both the nature of the Canadian Corps’ victory and exaggerates its place in developing the Canadian nation. Since World War I, Vimy Ridge has become the epicenter of Canadian nationalism, and has been the focus of many works from poems to textbooks that trace Canadian national history. As a result, it has been used often by politicians from Sir Arthur Currie to prime minister Mackenzie to promote their own political agendas. While the majority

Currie, a Canadian under British command, was able to go to France to study the lessons learned by the French at Verdun and to bring them home for Canadians to use. These tactics were to ensure that everyone was in a position where they could see their objective and the likely enemy strongpoints.3 Furthermore, French aircrafts took extensive pictures of the enemy territory, which were distributed to brief troops, so they could have at a minimum, recognizable knowledge of the land.4 Except, as Paul Dickson explains, "Currie did not make his observations in a vacuum,” and many of the methods he suggested had already been implemented within British as well as Canadian divisions.5 This in no way diminishes the achievement of the Canadians, since it was the Corps' thorough preparation, which ensured its success; but, French blood and bravery were fundamental ingredients to the Canadian success at Vimy Ridge, making it an allied

During the last hundred days the Canadians liberated five hundred square miles and met and defeated forty-seven German divisions, nearly a quarter of the divisions in the German army. Therefore, by November 1918 Canadians believed that their participation had been “that of a nation defending its right to exist” and not a colony responding to the war effort of its mother country.17 During the war, prime minister, Borden had demanded a greater role for Canada, and was angered by the lack of communication between Ottawa and London. In a letter to the British he wrote, “It can hardly be expected that we shall put 400,000 or 500,00 men in the field and willingly accept the position of having no more voice and receiving no more consideration.”18 His discontent did not go unnoticed and the Imperial War Conference of 1917 reports state that any changes to the constitutional relations of the Empire “should recognize the right of the Dominions and India to an adequate voice in foreign policy and in foreign relations, and should provide effective arrangements for continuous consultation in all important matters of common imperial concern.”19 Therefore, the appearance of separate signatures for the Dominions, as members of the British empire on the Paris Peace Accord, represented international recognition of their status